Pagenaud Claims Wild Baltimore Grand Prix

“I really don’t know,” Hull said. “We’ll probably start to address that on the way home tonight.”

Of course, there are two sides to every story and from the Team Penske side it was one of tremendous disappointment and an admission of fault.

“Nobody needed that,” said Team Penske president Tim Cindric. “Will had no idea. He said he had no idea he was there and he went sideways. He never looked in the mirror; he had a good run on Bourdais and never thought someone would have the run on him. Nobody needed that. He never knew he was there.

“Just like last week, everybody is going to believe what they want to believe instead of the facts.”

And no one felt worse about the situation than Power and it was obvious by looking at him the sincere disappointment and realization that it was his fault.

“I feel badly,” Power said. “I had no clue he was there. Double-file restarts I’m looking at this guy and I thought I had just lost it. Then to find out Dixon was there I feel so terrible for him. I didn’t know he was there. I can’t say anything else. It’s not good, not good. There has to be a rule on these double-file restarts that you can’t have a lap until start/finish because these people are getting these massive runs. I didn’t even look in my mirror. I tried to get a good run on him and he had a run on me. Not good – not good at all.”

After last week’s incident that cost Dixon the victory when Power hit one of Dixon’s crew members Dixon sent Power a congratulatory text message. Power was asked if he was going to text Dixon on Sunday night to explain what happened in the incident.

“I’m going to go see him,” Power said. “He’s not going to want to talk to me but not good. I feel very bad what happened.

“I see these guys week-in and week-out so this is not good.

“I’m sure there is going to be some discussion from Race Control what happened. I need to talk to the guys and explain what happened.

“Man, it’s just bad. It’s all bad all around. I ruined two good days and I feel bad for the guys. Nothing more to say. I feel terrible.”

Before the race, IndyCar President of Competition Derrick Walker had a meeting with Dixon and Power to make sure there was fair play between both drivers and teams in Sunday’s race. Both agreed and appeared to race each other fairly. In fact, prior to that incident Dixon was having more problems with Graham Rahal than anyone else.

“I was trying to win the race and beat Bourdais because he wasn’t going to stop again,” Power explained. “Dixon is not going to want to talk to me but it was not intentional. It’s a very bad situation. Dixon was there. I got a run on Bourdais and I’m looking at him and pulling out to pass him and I must have lost it on a bump. I didn’t know what happened. Oh, it’s all bad. Man, I had no clue he was there and I feel terrible for him. We ruined two days there. I was looking at Bourdais back and go up the inside. Had I looked in my mirror – I didn’t even think. I was focused on Bourdais. I really feel bad for Dixon. It’s a bad thing to happen.

“We had a great car. I just think they have to change the rule on these double-file restarts. It’s ridiculous you can get runs on people. NASCAR does it right. We can’t do double-file restarts on street courses. Here and Long Beach it’s yellow after yellow after yellow. They need a good think how they do that.”

Power’s move had unintended positive consequences for Team Penske, however, as it allowed Castroneves to gain points on his chief pursuer in the points.

“It’s definitely not what you’d like to see,” Power said. “He gained but points but that is not the way I would like to see it. I feel bad what happened.”

Castroneves feels like had had just talked his way out of a speeding ticket. Consider that he was the first incident of the race, had to repair the front nose on his car twice and ran over a crewmember that resulted in a penalty only to finish ninth and gain points it was like getting a second reprieve.